@saintsoftness
essayist + critic + art historian ⎔ book WE THE PARASITES (https://sublunaryeditions.com/products/we-the-parasites) ⎔ Critic in Residence at IDM-NYU ⎔ THESE NEW FRAGILITIES coming in 2028 from Seven Stories Press avmarraccini.com
This is tomorrow and I’ll be reading a corona of sonnets on ends of empire, Tang and Song Dynastic influences, museum vitrines, melancholy antiquarianism, and yes, Pliny the kitten.
Love, actually.
LGBT History Month is February in the UK, and I’m thrilled to see We The Parasites featured by its British publisher, @bhousepress.bsky.social!
Hairless?
Lap crashout. She is “sleeping” while I’m back with Monte Cristo, pausing for pets and to promise her I would break her out of any prison and avenge her in eternity. I know this is basically a Plin fan account now, but can you blame me?
Some stray thoughts on writing on Substack, capital, 19thC French feuilleton culture, and a sonnet on the internet in the age of new anxiety:
open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...
Plin size comparison of the night— lip balm tube, still a miniature loaf no matter how many times a day I’m feeding her!
Some stray thoughts on writing on Substack, capital, 19thC French feuilleton culture, and a sonnet on the internet in the age of new anxiety:
open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...
The Count of Monte Cristo is indeed so exciting and fun that she cannot stop writhing around my lap alternately purring and pouncing as I read. I have already accused her of Royalist, Bonapartist, and Toy Mouse sympathies, to no avail!
During a snowstorm, the rule is you can read anything you want but it can’t be related to your current work, it must be solely for indulgence and pleasure:
Honestly, I just love her so much. She has instantly become a huge joy in my life and home.
Read along with us here in Pliny the Elder's Natural History in dual Latin and English for free on Perseus-- on snow: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?...
Pliny is now five of her Loebs tall (I am reading to her at night but uh, right now she prefers watching Olympics!):
I got some work done but it’s hard when you’re being observed by the boss:
In case you wanted to know what color Plin’s beans are, the answer is every color
Somehow I am snuggling instead of doing the fifteen things around the house that need doing:
I thought we were done for the night but she was too cute:
My new set of epigrams (Decadence Obsédé) on Huysmans, Nijinsky, Ovidian moments, rot, and perfume is currently in print in The Toe Rag, Issue 8. Buy it here or in US stockists:
thetoerag.com/buy
Accidental self portrait when trying to photograph the wooden back of an altarpiece panel. These are always the best pictures of oneself somehow…
In other marvelous unfinished things, you can still see the grain of this 16thC Netherlandish Arrival to Bethlehem and the lines where the paint would go in.
In some ways, an unfinished Rubens triumphs over a complete one; the provisionality of the sketch frees up something daring in his figuration I love.
Another Plin size comparison:
She genuinely loves TV and watches it with real attention! I hope I’m not raising my kitten with too much screen time?
Pliny, human with unkempt hair for scale:
She is about two in size, maybe!
I just want to take a second from my unbridled new kitten joy to mourn Michael Silverblatt, a book person’s book person and a critic’s critic. RIP.
Babies are babies!
This feels like a great time to mention that I’ll be writing a piece on the historical Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Kitten, natural history as form, new love, and excitement about knowing the world for the Public Domain review. Her other nine Loeb volumes are in the mail!
Hello from an exploratory/crazy morning for Pliny the Kitten! A few innocent pens were summarily dispatched off the desk and the neon mouse remains popular.
Excerpt 2: